Hiking and climbing in Colorado - Day 5 of 8
My alarm went off at 1 am. It was earlier than most sane people would start, but after my performance in the last two days, I thought I'd need the extra time to make it up to the summit and get down before the dreaded afternoon thunderstorm Colorado that is famous for. Fortunately Megan required very little coaxing to get going in the morning. We were all geared up and at the trailhead by 1:30 am.
The moon over Longs Peak
The moon was still quite bright right now, only three days passed the full moon. We were able to keep the headlamps off even below treeline. The weather was not perfect, however. The clouds were rolling by very fast, and the wind was very strong. Above the treeline we were facing wind gusts up to 40 mph, which was strong enough to push us around a bit, even upset our balance. I could see there was a weather system that was moving in, and the air temperature was dropping. I was wearing a short sleeve synthetic t-shirt and a long-sleeve synthetic t-shirt, and in my backpack I packed a pair of gloves, a fleece cap, a softshell windstopper jacket, a hooded puffy (polarguard) belay jacket, and a gore-tex hardshell jacket. I had believe that I was overpacking, but "just in case", I thought. A the end I was very glad that I brought everything I packed.
The going was slow, but steady. We were the first ones on the trail, and for a long time seemed like the only one. The Keyhole route took the path of least resistance up Longs Peak, which happened to take us on a spiral path almost 360-degrees around the mountain. By the time we made it to 12,000 feet (my previous high point was Mt. Hood in Oregon, at 11,239 feet), the air temperature was hovering 35-degrees F, and with the windchill well below freezing. I was already wearing my gloves, my fleece cap, and my softshell jacket. We took some short breaks to drink some water and eat some snacks, but the strong wind meant that we get cold very quickly, and had to start moving. We saw some lights far below us around the treeline, we wondered if they were other hikers, but at the end they turned out to be fixed lights from either houses or parking lots. It felt like we had the whole mountain to ourselves, and it was a very spooky feeling.
We made it to the large Boulder Field at around 5:30 am. There were a few tent sites around the area, but they all stood empty, which added to the spooky feeling. Megan and I took another water/snack break by huddling under a big boulder to get a break from the wind. After the Boulder Field, the route finding became more difficult because there wasn't a trail to follow anymore, it became class-2 boulder hopping, and trying to follow cairns, which weren't always visible by the range of the headlamps. We made it to the little stone hut left of the Keyhole (a big hole in the ridgeline) around 6:40 am, and watched from the shelter of the stone hut a very red sunrise.
"Red sky in the morning,
Sailors take warning;
Red sky at night,
Sailor's delight."
A red sunrise
Photo: Megan Dunn
The wind was howling outside the stone shelter. The Keyhole acted as a big wind tunnel, even when clinging to the rocks on all fours, you still felt like you may get blown off the mountain. I had planned to get to Keyhole right around sunrise and hoped the wind would die down a little. But the weather did not look better now the sun is up. The guidebook said the Keyhole is the last good place to turn around if the weather is bad, after the Keyhole the going gets tough. I debated whether to continue or turn around, and asked Megan for her opinion. Being the Weathergirl, she convinced me that the dark ominous clouds were no threat to us at all, we should keep on going.
We crawled around the Keyhole under the rising sun, fortunately the wind on the other side was much calmer than in the wind tunnel. The trail at this point was class 2 or class 3 scramble with a long sloping drop off to one side. It was certainly fairly exposed, but viewing from rock climber's eyes, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined. The wind still gusted up to 30mph once in a while, so I kept my hands on the rock for balance, and we followed the red-and-yellow bull's eye that marked the trail from the Keyhole onward.
Megan scrambling the Trough
We ascended the Trough (a gully filled with loose rocks), traversed across the Narrows (supposedly the most exposed section of the trail), climbed around the Chockstone (supposedly the hardest move on the trail), and soon we were at the Homestretch - the last 300 feet or so of slabs before the summit. I was really sucking wind at this point, climbing very slowly, and stopping to catch my breathe frequently. Megan on the other hand, seemed to be doing really well, maybe she was born a mountaineer.
The Narrows
I pulled myself onto another boulder, and suddenly we were looking at a big flat boulder field. "I think we found the summit!" It was 8 am, it took us 6.5 hours to hike to the summit. The top of Longs Peak was huge and really flat, it didn't really have "summit" feel to it. We looked around for the highest point, and found the USGS marker on one of the boulders on the east side. It was really windy at the top, I put on all the layers I brought with me - the puffy jacket, the gore-tex shell and all. We were the first one to the top that day, there were some dark clouds in the sky, but they were rolling pass really fast, so we stayed at the summit for about half an hour, getting some water and food into our stomach, and taking summit photos. Russell the Moose came out from his hiding place to pose for a summit shot, and he was promptly blown off the boulder he was standing on. He had to hold on to his new friend the Nalgene bottle in order to get his picture taken.
Russell and his new friend the water bottle
Photo: Megan Dunn
After getting rested (and getting cold), Megan and I started hiking back down the mountain. Going down was a little harder on my knees, but much easier on my lungs. It wasn't until the top of the Trough did we meet another hiker. The first one we met was climbing by himself, we later learned from the trailhead register that he started at 5 am and made the roundtrip in just 7 hours. He was flying. We met two more hikers in the Trough, three more before the Keyhole, then 8 on the Boulder Field. It was around 10 o'clock by the time we got to the Boulder Field, but the temperature was still hovering around 40-degrees F. The dark clouds weren't blowing pass us anymore, they were starting to build around us. The people coming up the Keyhole route were asking us about the conditions at the summit, we told them it was windy, and warned them about the weather change.
The changing weather
Photo: Megan Dunn
In total there were 18 people intended for the summit via the Keyhole route that day, I think only about half of us made it to the summit. Some were more prepared than others, and some had dangerously little common sense. The last group (whom we didn't meet on the trail) started at 11:45 am for the summit, tomorrow we would found out from the trailhead register that they didn't make it the summit, and got back to the parking lot at 7 pm.
By the time Megan and I made it back to the parking lot at 1 pm, it had started drizzling. Later that night the drizzle would turn into steady rain, and of course at higher elevation, it would be sleeting and snowing. Some of the people who started late had to hike in the sleet and snow, Megan and I, however, remained dry all day. We took a much needed nap back at the camp that afternoon, and we went to Ed's Cantina (a climber's hangout) in Estes Park for Mexico food that night.
Longs Peak
The moon was still quite bright right now, only three days passed the full moon. We were able to keep the headlamps off even below treeline. The weather was not perfect, however. The clouds were rolling by very fast, and the wind was very strong. Above the treeline we were facing wind gusts up to 40 mph, which was strong enough to push us around a bit, even upset our balance. I could see there was a weather system that was moving in, and the air temperature was dropping. I was wearing a short sleeve synthetic t-shirt and a long-sleeve synthetic t-shirt, and in my backpack I packed a pair of gloves, a fleece cap, a softshell windstopper jacket, a hooded puffy (polarguard) belay jacket, and a gore-tex hardshell jacket. I had believe that I was overpacking, but "just in case", I thought. A the end I was very glad that I brought everything I packed.
The going was slow, but steady. We were the first ones on the trail, and for a long time seemed like the only one. The Keyhole route took the path of least resistance up Longs Peak, which happened to take us on a spiral path almost 360-degrees around the mountain. By the time we made it to 12,000 feet (my previous high point was Mt. Hood in Oregon, at 11,239 feet), the air temperature was hovering 35-degrees F, and with the windchill well below freezing. I was already wearing my gloves, my fleece cap, and my softshell jacket. We took some short breaks to drink some water and eat some snacks, but the strong wind meant that we get cold very quickly, and had to start moving. We saw some lights far below us around the treeline, we wondered if they were other hikers, but at the end they turned out to be fixed lights from either houses or parking lots. It felt like we had the whole mountain to ourselves, and it was a very spooky feeling.
We made it to the large Boulder Field at around 5:30 am. There were a few tent sites around the area, but they all stood empty, which added to the spooky feeling. Megan and I took another water/snack break by huddling under a big boulder to get a break from the wind. After the Boulder Field, the route finding became more difficult because there wasn't a trail to follow anymore, it became class-2 boulder hopping, and trying to follow cairns, which weren't always visible by the range of the headlamps. We made it to the little stone hut left of the Keyhole (a big hole in the ridgeline) around 6:40 am, and watched from the shelter of the stone hut a very red sunrise.
"Red sky in the morning,
Sailors take warning;
Red sky at night,
Sailor's delight."
The wind was howling outside the stone shelter. The Keyhole acted as a big wind tunnel, even when clinging to the rocks on all fours, you still felt like you may get blown off the mountain. I had planned to get to Keyhole right around sunrise and hoped the wind would die down a little. But the weather did not look better now the sun is up. The guidebook said the Keyhole is the last good place to turn around if the weather is bad, after the Keyhole the going gets tough. I debated whether to continue or turn around, and asked Megan for her opinion. Being the Weathergirl, she convinced me that the dark ominous clouds were no threat to us at all, we should keep on going.
We crawled around the Keyhole under the rising sun, fortunately the wind on the other side was much calmer than in the wind tunnel. The trail at this point was class 2 or class 3 scramble with a long sloping drop off to one side. It was certainly fairly exposed, but viewing from rock climber's eyes, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined. The wind still gusted up to 30mph once in a while, so I kept my hands on the rock for balance, and we followed the red-and-yellow bull's eye that marked the trail from the Keyhole onward.
We ascended the Trough (a gully filled with loose rocks), traversed across the Narrows (supposedly the most exposed section of the trail), climbed around the Chockstone (supposedly the hardest move on the trail), and soon we were at the Homestretch - the last 300 feet or so of slabs before the summit. I was really sucking wind at this point, climbing very slowly, and stopping to catch my breathe frequently. Megan on the other hand, seemed to be doing really well, maybe she was born a mountaineer.
I pulled myself onto another boulder, and suddenly we were looking at a big flat boulder field. "I think we found the summit!" It was 8 am, it took us 6.5 hours to hike to the summit. The top of Longs Peak was huge and really flat, it didn't really have "summit" feel to it. We looked around for the highest point, and found the USGS marker on one of the boulders on the east side. It was really windy at the top, I put on all the layers I brought with me - the puffy jacket, the gore-tex shell and all. We were the first one to the top that day, there were some dark clouds in the sky, but they were rolling pass really fast, so we stayed at the summit for about half an hour, getting some water and food into our stomach, and taking summit photos. Russell the Moose came out from his hiding place to pose for a summit shot, and he was promptly blown off the boulder he was standing on. He had to hold on to his new friend the Nalgene bottle in order to get his picture taken.
After getting rested (and getting cold), Megan and I started hiking back down the mountain. Going down was a little harder on my knees, but much easier on my lungs. It wasn't until the top of the Trough did we meet another hiker. The first one we met was climbing by himself, we later learned from the trailhead register that he started at 5 am and made the roundtrip in just 7 hours. He was flying. We met two more hikers in the Trough, three more before the Keyhole, then 8 on the Boulder Field. It was around 10 o'clock by the time we got to the Boulder Field, but the temperature was still hovering around 40-degrees F. The dark clouds weren't blowing pass us anymore, they were starting to build around us. The people coming up the Keyhole route were asking us about the conditions at the summit, we told them it was windy, and warned them about the weather change.
In total there were 18 people intended for the summit via the Keyhole route that day, I think only about half of us made it to the summit. Some were more prepared than others, and some had dangerously little common sense. The last group (whom we didn't meet on the trail) started at 11:45 am for the summit, tomorrow we would found out from the trailhead register that they didn't make it the summit, and got back to the parking lot at 7 pm.
By the time Megan and I made it back to the parking lot at 1 pm, it had started drizzling. Later that night the drizzle would turn into steady rain, and of course at higher elevation, it would be sleeting and snowing. Some of the people who started late had to hike in the sleet and snow, Megan and I, however, remained dry all day. We took a much needed nap back at the camp that afternoon, and we went to Ed's Cantina (a climber's hangout) in Estes Park for Mexico food that night.
- Peak: Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain NP
- Elevation: 14,261 feet
- Route: Keyhole Route (class 1 to class 3)
- Distance: 16 miles roundtrip
- Elevation gain: 4,845 feet
- Starting from parking lot: 1:30 am
- Summit: 8:00 am
- Return to parking lot: 1:00 pm
- Stop time (summit, breaks): around 1.5 hours
- Moving time: 10 hours
- Total time: 11.5 hours
posted by Boer @ 9/21/2005
1 Comments:
At 11:11 AM,
Anonymous said…
Colorado looks absolutely amazing through your camera lens:)
-Erin
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